EN
The article focuses on two important phenomena: the collectivism and the individualism of culture as based on the changing funeral rites in the area betwixt the Oder and the Vistula rivers at the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Characteristic features of this period consist in the gradual disappearance of individual inhumation graves as well as individual burials by fire in grave holes and urn fields in favour of scattered ditch and basin-shaped cremation graves. These phenomena are explained by an increase in the collectivism of the cultures found within the discussed area, which gradually replaced cultures based on an individualistic perception of its community members.